


molasses-thick tongue

by sybaritick



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (a little bit?), Age Difference, M/M, Manipulation, Power Imbalance, Praise Kink, Religious Guilt, Written at 1am, author wants to eat ezra miller bc damn, i can taste the manipulative nature of this relationship and i can't stay away, i guess this should be interpreted as being grindelgraves- but really read it as you prefer, when i read this in the morning im gonna judge myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 13:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16811428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybaritick/pseuds/sybaritick
Summary: Credence didn’t know what he wanted, hadn’t known then and didn’t know now; he knew only that if he waited, then Graves' hands would spread his milk-white thighs with the reverence one would confer an artwork.





	molasses-thick tongue

Graves coaxed the boy up to his full height, fingertips grazing the short, crookedly shaven hair on the back of Credence’s neck. He followed Graves’ hands almost too eagerly, stumbling out of the armchair and into the man’s chest, but Graves only laughed warmly. He let his hand drift down Credence’s back to rest on his narrow waist.

In the rare moments Credence stood tall, the two were the same height-- but a certain hollowness in his ribcage kept him curled into his chest, enough that for all anyone saw he could be swallowed up by the older man’s shadow.

Credence was drawn to his touch easily, readily, with a desperation he resented nearly as much as he loved. There wasn’t magic in it, no-- this was just Mr. Graves’ presence, and the warm persuasive discomfort that pulled words Credence didn’t know that he had from his throat.

He was certain Graves’ bed was the warmest place in New York. He had first been lured across the man’s doorway by a feigned interest in the Second Salemites and the promise of hot chocolate. It had taken Mr. Graves three tries to get him to finally agree, but the strange mixture of guilt and relief he felt at accepting the man’s gifts would soon grow familiar.

Credence had held the mug carefully, almost reverently, as he sat up at the edge the armchair. He tried to shake the fear that his very presence would bring some unpleasant energy into Graves’ house-- the same way his mother clearly felt about her own house. But Mr. Graves indicated nothing of the sort; he smiled, much more than his mother ever smiled at him, and he knew how to touch without harming. Graves’ hands pulled the evidence and pain of his mother’s beatings away until they disappeared into the air like frost melted off by the mid-morning sun.

Magic, he knew. It was evil; the worst type of sin.

He took a slow sip of the hot chocolate and thanked Mr. Graves for the third time that morning.

Graves laughed gently, reassuring him that it was nothing, that he should take another few moments out of the cold. He offered Credence a warm, soft cinnamon bun topped with walnuts. Credence was not sure whether the most pleasant part was the gentle sweetness of the bread or the smile on the man’s face when he accepted it.

He pulled it apart self-consciously as Mr. Graves talked to him about magic, and he felt a strange sense of calm that he thought perhaps he hadn’t felt since he was thirteen.

He would speak to Graves again four days later; the man greeted him with something warm to drink and a soft woollen hat. Credence insisted that he couldn’t accept it-- he couldn’t possibly take charity. But Mr. Graves persisted, hand resting gently on Credence’s shoulder as he guided him back to his apartment.

It took only another two meetings before Graves first kissed him-- a chaste press of lips that left a strange burning warmth in Credence’s chest that willed him to do it again.

And he did; that and anything else Mr. Graves wanted, anything that would satisfy him, anything he asked for in his smooth, warm, patient voice that dropped lower when he taught Credence what his body was for.

None of these quite matched the warm approval he had finally felt with his hands around the mug of cocoa that first night.

 _Tell me what you want, my sweet,_ Graves had murmured against his neck in this same room not a month later, as February turned to March. Credence didn’t know what he wanted, hadn’t known then and didn’t know now; he knew only that if he waited, then the man’s hands would spread his milk-white thighs with the reverence one would confer an artwork.

His tongue felt thick and sweet like molasses as he formed the words _yes, Mr. Graves, please sir--_

Graves moved slowly, deliberately-- drinking in the naïvety visible in Credence’s uncertain little movements and the rise and fall of his narrow chest, untouched like fresh snow.

He took Credence’s narrow wrists and pinned them to the mattress above his head, leaving his other hand free to begin unbuttoning his shirt. The material was thin and cheap, and Graves pulled the the first few buttons open roughly before gliding his hand up the boy’s chest. Credence’s breath hitched when the man’s fingers brushed against his exposed collarbone, and he gave a soft, involuntary little whimper.

He let his hand skim up the boy’s ribcage before brushing against a pale pink nipple. Credence arched his back up and exhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut tighter, tighter than they already were.

Graves rewarded him with a low, pleased hum and a vulpine smile, letting his fingers trail down, down, down Credence’s chest and belly to the slim buckle of his slacks.

For every part of Credence that wasn’t sure if his conscience had followed him past the door of Mr. Graves’ apartment, there was a part of him that craved this, craved the warmth of Graves’ callused hands and the easy fall to the seduction of witches and wizards, as easy as his mother had told him it would be. No thoughts, no decisions, no beatings, no pamphlets, no God but the thrumming high of Mr. Graves’ hands taking what they wanted from his body.

He chased the high like there was nothing else in the world that he wanted. Mr. Graves never gave him quite enough to satisfy the addiction that ate away at his heart, and their meetings became more and more frequent-- and every night Credence came to the alley empty-handed but for the pamphlets from the Second Salemites. It was a dark and lovely irony; the kind Mr. Graves would appreciate, were he not so absorbed in appreciating Credence’s rose-pink lips and willing mouth with his fingers and his teeth and his tongue.

Credence knew that Graves pulled his leash shorter and shorter with every night he spent in the older man’s bed, and he cursed himself for the warmth in the pit of his stomach each time he felt the chafe of the collar on his neck.

He was born wicked, born dark and twisted and violently impure; he did not seek further explanation for the desire to be the devil’s concubine.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @sybaritick!


End file.
